


All The World's Water Leaving

by heartofstanding



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Rape/Non-con, Gen, Original Character Death(s), Rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-13 09:15:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7971421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartofstanding/pseuds/heartofstanding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The counting and reckoning of Toast's days, from the time she was too little to count them to her escape.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All The World's Water Leaving

Toast is too little to count her days yet. She gets up to ten and doesn't know what comes after and has to start again. She lives with her mummy, her daddy, her aunty and her nanna in a car. The car's small, but not as small as her, and it runs on Daddy's muttered curses that she's not supposed to hear. She sits in the backseat of the car, pressed between Mummy and Nanna, and it gets real sweaty, her legs pressed right up against their larger ones. It doesn't feel good, but there's something unbearable about the sudden loss of warmth when Mummy or Nanna peel themselves away.

There are other people in the world, but Toast doesn't know a whole lot about them. Nanna makes her play a game whenever they come close to other people. She hides, pressing herself into whatever small place they can find – normally, in the car's boot; once under Aunty's skirts – and she stays very still and quiet until Nanna says she can come out.

When she comes out, they have more food, more water, and Aunty's hands are unwinding from the handle of her gun.

+

Toast is three thousand days old, or close enough. Nanna's getting old, but she still makes Toast play the hiding game, even though Toast's too big for the old hiding places. Aunty teaches her how to match bullets to the mishmash collection of guns they have, even when it makes Dad's face get all tight and worried.

+

Toast is nearly five thousand days old. In the old world, it would've meant she's been around for thirteen years, Nan says, but she doesn't say what a year means, besides a whole lot of days. Toast sits in the car with Nan when they run into other people. There's not much water left in the world, the old wells and reservoirs are drying up, and it's always a struggle to get what they need. Toast spends a lot of time thinking about what will happen, when all the world's water dries up. And when there's no more to be found, what then?

It keeps her awake at night, sometimes, her eyes seeking out the stars, trying to see the pictures Mum draws for her in the sand. She thinks: _panic_. She thinks things will be worse than they are now. The drives will get longer, the trades steeper. Aunty will have to fire her gun. But when it's over, when the water finally runs out, then—

Silence.

Maybe something else, maybe peace. Maybe staying in one place. Maybe nothing.

But there's another part of her, one that lives in a very small, very quiet, very dark place within the spaces of her ribs that sees it as something different. As something inside her slowly leeching away. She closes her eyes against the scattered stars and sees herself, lying out in the desert as if pinned there, and something clear, translucent slowly leaking out of her body and seeping away, leaving her hollow. Her body loses colour and her skin becomes fragile, as though one touch would scatter her into dust and sand.

+

In the space of one hundred days, Nan gets sick. She doesn't leave the car except when she has to, barely talks and coughs and coughs and coughs. Until one day, she stops. Dies.

Dad pulls her out of the car, Mum digs a shallow hole in the sand and together, they roll her in, cover her up. In the morning, they move on.

Toast gets to sit where Nan used to, gets to look out the window at the world that changes with the wind. The car has never felt so big, so empty.

In the space of forty days, they roll into one of the tent-towns, try to trade for water. Toast has to stay in the car still, but there's no Nan to hide behind. The man in charge, the man with the water, looks right at her and smiles. He and Aunty argue a lot and when they get back in the car, with half the water they needed, Aunty's face is twisted up real tight and they don't wait around. As the tent-town gets smaller in the car's mirrors, Mum pulls out one of the spare guns and sets it in Toast's hand. It's a little thing, fitting snugly into Toast's palm.

'Are you sure—?' Dad says.

'It's time,' says Mum.

Mum shows her how to load the gun with bullets, how to aim it, how to switch the safety off and pull the trigger. It's startling, how easy it is.

+

Twenty-seven days pass. There aren't too many tent-towns out here and Mum is rationing their supplies. They stop to consider every wreck of a car they pass. Aunty once crouches down in front of a skeleton and reaches out to trace the hole drilled into its head.

'Bullet-hole,' she says, and plucks the skull up. There's just one hole and when Aunty shakes the skull, something rattles in its caverns. 'Bullet.' Aunty gives a grim little grin and begins to work the bullet out.

'Do you have to? That was a person once.' Dad's peering at the engine, seeing if there's anything worth taking.

'Have you seen a magical tree with bullets growing on it out here?' Aunty says, 'Or would you prefer it if we defended ourselves with invisible bullets?'

Dad goes quiet and Aunty calls Toast over. 'You've got small fingers,' she says, 'You try.'

+

They keep going for another thirty days. That used to mean something, in the old world, but Toast can't remember what and Nan's not there to answer her questions. Their bellies are getting real tight with hunger and Mum looks grim when she counts out their rations each night. But they come to another tent-town. It's full of light and bright, bright sound. Laughter. Cheers. Yelling.

Dad and Aunty exchange looks in the front seat, then look back at her and Mum. 'It doesn't look safe,' Mum says, her hand crawling out to seize Toast's.

'No,' Aunty sets her gun on her lap and her hand grabs the box of bullets she's cast from scrap metal.

'We need water,' Dad says, and adds, like an afterthought, 'And food.'

'Don't know how far away the next place is,' Aunty says.

'Or if it's any better,' says Dad, 'Could be worse than here.'

There's a crash of breaking glass followed by hooting laughter and Toast cringes. She wants to tell them that they shouldn't, that this place is bad, but she knows they already know it. She knows they're not talking crap.

'Aunty and I will go,' Dad says, 'You stay, be ready to drive. If we're not back soon, you go.'

Mum nods sharply, pulling open her door. Aunty and Dad get out, load their guns. Mum settles in the driver's seat, pulls the door shut and locks it.

'Toast,' Mum says, watching the figures of Dad and Aunty disappear amongst the tents, 'Load your gun and stay down low. Don't let anyone see you.'

Toast nods, feeling her teeth grit against each other. She's careful, loading her gun, not letting her hands shake or sweat. She's done this before, done it a hundred times, but it's the first time she's done it knowing there's a chance she'll use it. Then she folds herself into the space between the front seat and the backseat, breathing in the smell of ancient floor-mats, trying not to choke on it. She's not sure how long they wait and then there's a gunshot, loud and clear, then another.

'Mum?' she asks, voice trembling, 'Mum?'

'I don't know,' Mum says, and Toast pictures her with hands sliding over the wheel. 'I don't know.'

Toast nods, biting her lip hard. It could've been Aunty, could've been Dad. Could've been the ones who live there. Mum doesn't move. Toast thinks, _we should go, we should go_. Gunshots are never the markers of good news. They're in danger; they're waiting too long. But they can't just go, can they? They can't go and leave Aunty and Dad here, not when they don't know what's happened.

'Mum,' Toast says, 'Should we go?'

Mum doesn't say anything.

There's the sound of yelling, a sudden blaze of light and Aunty comes running. She's carrying a sack and a tin, her gun slung over a shoulder, absolutely pelting for the car. Mum starts the car, waits until Aunty's thrown herself in and she goes.

+

Aunty waits until the night after to tell them what happened, the whole bloody lot of it. The sum of it is this: Dad's dead. The leader of the tent-place shot him, just because. Aunty shot the leader, grabbed what she could and legged it. They can't go back for his body. Mum drives with dry-eyes and pursed lips and Aunty counts bullets.

Toast has the whole backseat to herself, now. She can stretch out on it and sleep, if she wants. But if she closes her eyes, she sees her father's body on a floor of sand, a halo of blood around his head and the boots of men and women stepping around him, uncaring.

It comes to her, on the verge of exhausted sleep, that one day she will have the whole car to herself. That one day, Aunty and Mum will be gone and Toast will be all that's left.

+

Toast is five thousand, five hundred and fifty-five days old. It feels like a good number, all those fives. Mum's been teaching her how to drive, which is taking a while. All the gears keep getting mucked up in her head. As long as that takes, the days feel endless – time feels endless, the world and more. She spends long hours with her head against the window, staring at the lands they're passing, watching the features blur until it looks all the same.

+

Toast is five thousand, five hundred and seventy-three days old. This tent-town looks like all the old ones, the ones that were safe enough. Mum and Aunty don't make her stay in the car anymore, say there's no point trying to hide her forever. They make her tuck a gun into a bag, tell her not to stray too far and set her loose.

The sun's bright, the sky clear, but the heat doesn't cling tight to her. She makes friends for a few hours, pretends she could be a part of this town, that they might give up the endless road, settle down here. It might not be too bad, really. Toast will never have to be alone if she doesn't want to be.

But, in the end, Mum comes looking for her and it's time to get back in the car. Toast watches the tent-town disappear behind them, the distance between them getting larger and larger, until it's too far away.

+

It's a drive of two hundred and fourteen days to get them to the edges of new territory. There's been whispers of a place, a city at the centre of this wretched wasteland, that has enough water to go around. Toast isn't sure if they're going to stop once they get there – the idea is so strange, putting the brakes on and crawling out of the car, leaving it to the sands. What comes next?

There's a part of Toast that's terrified by the idea, _what comes next_. She wants this new world, a land of plenty, a refuge from the danger. A chance not to grasp her gun so tightly. But she is scared about what it means to stop.

Besides, this city sounds like a dream. She wants to beg Mum and Aunty to keep going, to never stop, but how can she? The water's drying up and it's hard to make their food last between tent-towns. It's hard to know what lurks in those dusty clusters of tents, too. One time they found the tents all empty, half-cooked food in pots sitting on cold ashes, another time they were greeted by bullets.

But this place, where the water's plenty, where there will be nothing they could possibly want for...

They have to try it.

+

Four days' drive into this new territory and they're spotted. A great convoy of vehicles come out of the sand, the sound of them tremendous, deafening. Mum brakes, keeps the engine idling, her hands on the wheel, her eyes on the cars that circle around them, showering them with sand. Aunty holds her gun to her chest, her face still.

They're so still and all Toast wants to do is find a gap, break through it. Leave. This isn't what they wanted. Her eyes dart from window to window, taking in the pale-painted boys driving, the ones hanging off the back. This isn't what they expected, what they wanted.

Mum pulls the handbrake on.

The boys are on them in moments, pulling the front doors open. Aunty fires a shot, rips a bloody gauge in one boy's shoulder, makes him drop to the ground. Another boy, probably a mate, rolls him away, and yet another boy takes his place. Aunty tries to get another shot, but a boy, bigger and older than the rest, blows a hole right through her shoulder, makes her fall. Red flows from her shoulder.

Mum screams.

A boy gets his hands on Toast. She twists, trying to throw him off, shoves herself away from him and into the clutches of another boy's hands. They pull her out, hold her arms behind her back, and take her gun from her.

Mum screams again and then there's no stopping her. She screams when they pull her out of the car, force her to the ground. She's eating sand, Toast wants to tell her that, tell to stop screaming so she'll stop eating sand. Toast wants to break free, pull Mum up, pull Aunty up, and run for it. Maybe they'll get lucky, manage hide from these boys.

But the hands on her are like iron.

A boy slides into the car and makes a loud noise of appreciation, firing the engine up. 'We'll make something of her,' he says.

A man that's not painted white like the rest of them, his black forehead shiny with grease, pushes through the painted bodies. He nods at the boy in the car, turns his eyes on Toast and grins. 'Immortan'll be pleased,' he says.

They take her with them, forcing her into the back of a car, holding her still when she tries to fight. They don't hurt her, don't try anything funny. They just don't let her get away, just hold her still. They take Mum as well, drag her into a different car. She's still screaming, sand all over her face. They leave Aunty, leave her swearing at them, fumbling one-handed for her gun, blood all over her.

+

It's been three days since they took Toast. She's not seen her mother. She's not seen anyone she can recognise, not even the painted boys who captured her. The only one she sees regularly is the man they call the Organic Mechanic, someone who would've been a doctor or a medic in the old years. He talks about half-lives and full-lives as he takes her blood, he talks about breeding, both before and after his attempts to touch her.

On the fourth day, her nails leave him bleeding and he calls in more of those painted boys – War Boys, they call themselves – to hold her while he touches her. When he is done, he takes her clothes and belongings with him and leaves her with a simple cloth to cover herself with.

It's on the seventh day of her capture that she meets another woman, the first she has seen in this terrible Citadel. Every inch of her skin is covered in words, and she is old, leaning on a wheeled contraption, her hair white as the clouds. Her name is Miss Giddy. She takes Toast's hand, leads her away from the cell and the Organic.

Miss Giddy explains things. 'You are now a thing, a bolt in the great machinery of the Citadel, a tool for the Immortan Joe to use as he sees fit, if he sees fit. It is your duty to serve him.' Miss Giddy's eyes darken, her lips part as if she would speak bitter words, but she closes them. A while later, she says, 'You are lucky to be chosen to serve him.'

There is a twist in Miss Giddy's voice that Toast does not like, something dark, a warning.

They pass through alleys of green, water dripping on the floor. Toast stares it, the waste of such a precious resource. But soon her eyes fasten on the great, round door set in red stone. Such a heavy door can only be to protect something very valuable. Miss Giddy stops before it and Toast feels a flicker of something like hope inside her. If she is being taken here, it means that she must be considered important.

Miss Giddy twists the handle, makes the cogs turn and the door open. Toast steps forward, her feet wanting to falter. Wanting to turn and run, as if she could find some way to escape, to find her mother, her aunt, to keep running. Miss Giddy pushes her through the doorway.

Inside, it's cool. There is so much _in_ there, things she's only ever heard of. Books, hundreds of books, stacked against walls. Five chairs set before a blackboard, cushions, even a piano. She turns to look at Miss Giddy, to ask her what she is expected to do here. Teach? They didn't ask her what she knows.

'All of what I said,' Miss Giddy says, 'Is what the Immortan Joe would like you to believe. It is what he'd like all of us to believe. He will call you his wife, his prized breeder, but you are his prisoner, his slave.'

The door shuts behind them and Toast turns, runs for it, trying to shove it open. It holds fast, an unyielding weight that won't even budge no matter how she batters herself against it. But she keeps trying, throwing herself against it, shouting at someone to let her out, beating her fists against it. She keeps on trying until her body fails her and she folds, her legs going out from under her so slowly, until she's left crouched and crying by the door.

Miss Giddy holds her, whispers the word 'sorry' into her hair.

+

There are five other wives already. Toast meets them all over the course of a day, the hours confined, marked, by the sun's light reflecting through the glass dome and the shadows diminishing and then lengthening, until the light vanishes.

First are Angharad and Capable, who emerge to take over from Miss Giddy. Who hold her and mix kindness with bitter hate. They do not say, _it will be alright_ and for that she is grateful. Over the endless days, they tell her what to expect. More of the greasy man's exams, one for every cycle of the moon, checking if she's ready to breed – Immortan won't touch them until they are – and after, if she's pregnant. Lessons from Miss Giddy to fill the days and all the luxuries left in the world. Three chances to bring a healthy child into the world, three strikes and they're out. Being out isn't a good thing.

Second is Ricci. She's on her last chance. She's older than them by hundreds of days and heavily pregnant, slow to move. Her eyes are like the stone towers of the Citadel Toast can see beyond the glass dome. Hard, but faraway, blurred. She doesn't speak much, looks at Toast with pity and envy before looking away, humming to herself a tuneless song. In fourteen days, the child in her will grow silent and still, will be delivered in a rush of blood and Ricci will be bundled out with the blood-stained cloths, deemed a failure as a breeder.

The Dag is the third to come out. She strolls out like she's got no cares in the world. She gives the appearance of not listening, but she'll interrupt Angharad and Capable to crack jokes, pouring scorn on their captor and his pets, the imperators and the war boys. It's not always very funny, but sometimes Toast laughs, and sometimes she laughs so much she almost forgets her situation.

Fourth is a tiny thing with big eyes that runs out on the Dag's heels, as if afraid to be left alone. This is Cheedo, the youngest, born in the glass dome of the Vault, the daughter of a wife who'd been already pregnant when Immortan took her. Cheedo is shy, slow to work up the courage to speak to Toast, but one night, she hugs Toast tight before slipping off to bed, and it feels like they're finally friends.

It amazes her, how these women are. Strong and intelligent, reading the books from the old world, pouring over the pictures of a world that's died, wondering what it was like, wondering what's left of it, beyond their prison, beyond the Citadel and the desert. They ask Toast for stories and she shares them all, trying to remember everything, trying to remember if she's seen hope for a new world. They have dreams, dreams so precisely beautiful, they're like shattered glass reflecting the sun, burning-bright. Like the first and last drop of water from a well. Dreams that seem impossible, a place of green, a place of blue water. They ask questions, struggling to understand the world in their books and the world outside and inside, a world of half-lives and madness.

Most of all, Toast is amazed by their kindness. They know little of the people outside, cannot be made to square their ideals, their dreams, with the people and world they live in. There is a steeliness in their softness, a desire for something better, to be better, but they cannot understand that they live in a world where you shoot to kill.

+

Toast forgets to count her days. They seem too unchanging, laid out rigidly in a row. She rises with the others, learns when they do, endures the Organic's examinations like they do and goes to bed when they do. She reads all the books in this place at least once, attends Miss Giddy's lessons, finding that now she's trapped, she is hungry to know everything she can. She marks, instead, the moons, feeling panic bleed into her when she realises that each moon's cycle drags her closer and closer to her fate.

On the night when the Organic declares Angharad fertile and ready, they sit by the pool, holding onto each other. It suddenly feels a lot more real than it did before. Angharad is steely-eyed, reaching out to pet Cheedo and tell her that it will be alright. In the early morning, Toast will lie awake in bed, hearing Angharad cry and be frozen, not knowing whether to go to her or let her grieve in private.

+

In the morning, the Organic presents then with gifts from Immortan: steel belts, armed with teeth and decorated with Immortan's emblem. Angharad goes first. She keeps her face blank, her body unresisting as he tugs and pulls her into place. Her face doesn't even flicker when he calls her a dozy cow. When it's Toast's turn, she bloodies his nose and refuses to help him in the slightest.

'You do it,' he orders Miss Giddy, so she does, stepping forward. Toast feels the stab of disappointment, of betrayal, but pushes it away. None of them have any choice in this. The blood on the Organic's face, his refusal to touch her – that's the only victory she'll get with this. She submits to Miss Giddy's hands, lets her set the lock on the belt.

The Organic doesn't leave until they're all locked into these hideous things. Cheedo is crying, tugging helplessly at her belt. Dag hurries over to Cheedo, holds her close. She tries to stop Cheedo's tears while her own eyes sparkle with rage. Capable fiddles with the locks, but they won't obey her fingers. Toast realises that they'll need bolt cutters to get them off. Miss Giddy stares at them, hopelessly, furiously sad.

'Leave it,' Angharad orders Capable, 'What do you think Joe will do, if he finds out?' Capable's lips thin. She stares at Angharad, but her fingers still, then drop away from the padlock.

'He won't do anything he wasn't already going to do,' Toast mutters, feeling the weight and the pinch of the belt around her hips.

+

The next day brings another of Immortan's gifts. A guard, an imperator in his armies. A woman. Furiosa. Harder than a rock, sharper than a nail. She looks as thrilled with her post as they are to find her in their space.

She doesn't speak. She doesn't watch them. There is red dust on her skin and Toast wants to ask her how the world feels, how hot the days are, how cold the nights are. What it is like to _want_ , to long for a sip of water, to never eat your fill in fear of running out of rations, to hear your heart thudding loudly in your chest, to feel the searing heat, to sweat and bleed.

Toast doesn't, though. She follows Furiosa's lead, follows the other girls' leads who don't acknowledge her except in small, darting glances when their words might seem too close to treason. Furiosa stares back at them, her face unchanging, and they turn their eyes downwards. Even if their words are treason, what would be done to them? He needs them.

+

A moon on and Immortan comes for Angharad.

Miss Giddy fusses about them, torn between rallying them to be strong and making sure they are presented like he wants them. She cups Angharad's face, says, 'Remember to breathe. He cannot touch your heart, remember that,' and then turns to snap at Cheedo for dawdling. They wear their hair brushed out, free from braids, shawls wrapped around their head and shoulders like veils. Furiosa looks away in disinterest.

This is the first time that Toast has seen Immortan. He is white. Skin painted white, dressed in white clothes and a plastic armour with moulded muscles and medals stuck on it in a delusion of strength. Dag hooks her pinkie around Toast's, leans in to whisper, 'Don't be fooled. He's a fat old man. _Covered_ in boils.'

They sing for him, standing arrayed around Miss Giddy at the piano. He talks to them, patting Cheedo's hair. He asks if there is anything they want or need. Angharad tells him no, there is nothing. No one asks him for their freedom. Even Toast understands this: there's no point in reminding him that they are his prisoners, his chattel. It's a futile rebellion. He would be angry. He'd call them ungrateful, remind them of the lie that he keeps them _safe_ and gives them _so much_.

It's terrible enough, what's happening to Angharad, without having that little speech thrown in their faces.

He takes Angharad away and they sit around the pool, huddling beneath their cloths. They listen to the sounds made above – the crude rumble of Joe's voice, flesh smacking flesh, the soft, pained noises Angharad makes – and shudder. Toast closes her eyes tight, plants her hands over her ears.

When it's over, Joe comes down, kisses them each. His hand lingers on Toast's hip and he murmurs, 'Soon, soon.' Toast tries not to be sick.

Angharad doesn't come down for hours yet. When she does, it's dark and they are all in bed, all pretending to sleep. Toast looks up into the darkness and hears the faint whisper of voices amongst the sound of bathing. It takes her awhile to place them: Angharad and a stranger. Furiosa.

+

Each new moon gives Toast new dread. The Organic keeps coming, keeps checking to see if Angharad's pregnant, if another of them has become fertile. He declares Dag fertile one visit, then, a couple of visits later, both Capable and Toast. Two days after the Organic visits, Immortan Joe comes and they go through the farce of entertaining him, of pretending to like him while waiting for him to take them upstairs and rape them.

He takes Toast from behind, forcing her down on her belly and wrapping his hands in her hair, using it as a chain. She bares her teeth at the mattress and hates him. When it's over, he sends her away like it's nothing, like he's done nothing, like she's nothing, like his seed isn't inside her like a vile poison. She goes down the stairs and sits down in the pool, her body too heavy for her legs to hold.

It still feels like his hands are in her hair.

She's naked and shivering. So aware of the state he's left her in and yet unable to move, to clean and clothe herself. She hears boots on the floor, feels a hand on her shoulder and reaches out, grabbing onto the arm. 'I need to cut my hair,' she says, 'I need to...' Her hands grasp at her hair, tugging it.

'Alright,' Furiosa says and it's Furiosa standing there. It's Furiosa who pulls her out of the pool, wraps a cloth around her shoulders. It's Furiosa who takes a knife, sharpens it, and cuts her hair to a messy halo around her face.

In the night, with Immortan gone and her sisters sleeping, Toast lies awake, her hand on her belly. She looks up at the ceiling, remembers the old dream of all the water in her body leaching out. Her body pinned against the sands, becoming a shell of glass, her skeleton and the sand beneath her visible through her skin. She blinks, feels something hot and wet sliding down her cheek.

+

Angharad is pregnant, her belly just beginning to swell with the child, and she is sullen, withdrawn. She sits by the glass, staring at the world outside, and she rarely talks. They're all worried about her, all have to press her to eat and bathe. But how else, Toast wonders, is she supposed to react?

Toast lets Cheedo talk her into looking through the books, to try and find something to cheer Angharad up. Usually, Toast would tell Cheedo just to read from some of the old political tomes Angharad has read over and over. Instead, she flicks through the books. An old slip of something falls out and Cheedo pounces on it. On one side is faded blue ink, a short note to a Katie from a Lea. On the front is green, a dense, leafy green against a rush of water falling down a black cliff, not unlike the water Joe dispenses to the Wretched.

But there's no Wretched in the photo. There is no one in it at all. All this water and no one trying to drink it or claim it. Cheedo traces the falling water with a fingertip. She holds it up, turning to Toast, then Furiosa. 'Do you think anywhere like that still exists?'

'Miss Giddy says there isn't.' Toast says. Imagine, all that water and all that green and all anyone thinks of is how pretty it is.

'I came from somewhere not that different from that,' Furiosa says.

Cheedo rubs her thumb over the corner of the photo. 'You came from a green place?'

'Yeah,' Furiosa says, 'A green place.'

Toast frowns, glancing at the photo, then Furiosa. She means to ask her why she let, but she already knows the answer. Because Furisa was stolen, like Toast was. And when she was stolen, she would've been taken here, to this vault, and she must have failed to give Joe a heir. Toast licks her lips.

'Does it still exist?'

'I don't know,' Furiosa looks away. She clears her throat. 'I've tried to go back before, but I—'

'Will you take us with you, next time you try?' It's Angharad who speaks, who looks up at last, face pale and drawn. Toast looks back at Furiosa, holds her breath.

+

Toast's hands are stained with white paint. She stands back, takes in the inside of the vault, the words painted on the walls, the floor. She squeezes her eyes shut, to memorise this place, as it was when she first came here, as it is as they leave it. Angharad makes a noise of approval, wraps an arm around Toast's shoulders. Her hands are also white with paint.

Furiosa will come for them soon. They have a small bag already packed, left by the door. There's no promises of softness, of comfort. Even the green place isn't a promise. They could die before they see it, it could be gone, eaten up by the desert. But this is what they want, to live with life rushing through their veins. To feel everything the world has to offer, even in the years of the half-lives. When Furiosa comes, they will leave in the darkness, and in the morning, they will be free and Toast will count her days again. 

**Author's Note:**

> I used the 'Furiosa' comic as inspiration for some moments but not treated it as a strict, canonical source for various reasons. 'Ricci' was a name I found in the art book and was apparently a name for to one of the Wives in the early stages of the film.


End file.
